Living legend of jazz Wynton Marsalis, just one of the era-defining and radical artists featured in the lineup for Texas Performing Arts’ 2025-26 season (Photo by Frank Stewart)
The nine muses of Greek mythology, the goddesses who inspire the creative arts, are once again sending their acolytes to grace the multiple stages overseen by Texas Performing Arts, as the organization releases its 2025-26 season lineup.
Announcing a roster of artists that span music, theatre, dance, puppetry, circus, and more, from stages as grand as the Bass Concert Hall to as intimate as the TPA Rehearsal Room, TPA Executive & Artistic Director Bob Bursey called the season “a celebration of transformative performance. … We are proud to present artists who are challenging conventions, redefining genres, and offering bold, vital perspectives through music, theatre, dance, and multidisciplinary performance. Each work invites audiences into powerful, immersive experiences that reflect the world in fresh and meaningful ways. We’re especially excited to foster and help develop innovative original works – supporting trailblazing contemporary artists as they bring new ideas to life on stage.”
Music
Carrie Rodriguez hosts her show, Laborotorio, not once but twice in the new season at Texas Performing Arts (Photo by Rachel Parker)
Like all her siblings, Polyhymnia was a muse of many aspects and interests, but her skills in rhetoric and harmony inspire both evenings of Carrie Rodriguez’s Laboratorio in the coming season. Her celebration of Latine culture through song and storytelling brings together Gaby Moreno and Mireya Ramos for an Old-Time Radio Hour Edition (Nov. 2) with not-so-old-timey radio hosts Laurie Gallardo and Alex Marrero. Next up in her quarterly residency, the El Gato Negro Edition (Jan. 24, 2026) presents Ruben Ramos & Friends for a rousing run through the Tejano star’s extensive repertoire.
Euterpe was skilled in many musical forms but was often depicted carrying a violin. However, there’ll be plenty of stringed instruments to go around as the Miró Quartet and Isidore String Quartet come together in sweetest harmony for Mendelssohn’s Octet at 200: A Legacy in Sound (Nov. 7), celebrating the bicentennial of the precocious genius’ Octet in E-Flat Minor, composed when he was only 16.
Jazz always finds a welcoming home at TPA, and this season is no exception in welcoming modern greats. Wynton Marsalis fronts arguably the nation’s premiere ensemble, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (Nov. 15), before Texas native Jason Moran pays homage to a piano great to mark his 125th birthday with Duke Ellington: My Heart Sings (Jan. 21, 2026). And while jazz isn’t the only thing they do, there’s definite swing to the comedic fusion stylings of Vienna’s Mnozil Brass with their show Strau$$ (Feb. 27. 2026), a sidesplitting event that owes as much to Monty Python as it does to the works of the meister of the waltz.
Of course, the reason there are so many muses is to allow so much inspiration of so many artists, as expressed by a packed calendar that includes the Balourdet Quartet (Feb. 27-28, 2026), pianist Lang Lang (April 4, 2026), and multi-instrumentalist and two-time Grammy and Pulitzer winner Rhiannon Giddens (May 2, 2026), who summons Clio, the muse of memory, as she traverses American musical history as an insight into the nation’s soul.
Theatre
(Left to right) Payton Tabb, Markia Nicole Smith, Jackson Kanawha Perry, Manny Houston, and Kolter Erickson in Stuntboy, in the Meantime (Photo by Jeremy Daniel)
Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, and Thalia, the guardian of comedy, stride the stage in a season rich in variety. However, it’s Melpomene who inspires the puppetry of Manual Cinema with The 4th Witch (Nov. 15), a radical reinvention of Macbeth with shadow puppets, live-action silhouettes, and more. Meanwhile, puppetry is just one of the skills employed by Herb Alpert Award-winner Robin Frohardt, who returns to TPA after her success in Austin in 2022 with Plastic Bag Store with her newest show Shopping Center Parking Lot (March 6-8, 2026), building a cardboard world inspired by the 15 years she spent living across the road from a Home Depot parking lot.
Some say that theatre is a way to explore that which is bigger than ourselves, and what is the astrology of Urania other than a way to reach the stars? That’s exactly the great heights towards the acrobats of Cirque Mechanics are aiming with their innovative show that mixes high flying, wonderous gizmos, and a dash of sideshow grease and glitter. Similarly, Not Every Mountain (April 17 – 19, 2026) allows Austin’s theatrical pioneers and innovators Rude Mechs to play with a grander scale in this transmedia celebration of the eons-long lives of mountains, mixing remarkable stagecraft with poetic recitals that would make the muse Erato proud.
For those darker souls among you, Katie Bender probes the veil between worlds with Instructions for a Séance (April 16-19, 2026), an experimental and interactive work inspired by the Harry Ransom Center’s archive of Harry Houdini.
The muses of drama are joined by the literary eloquence of their sister, Calliope, with an adaptation of Stuntboy, in the Meantime (May 5, 2026), the graphic novel by Jason Reynolds and Raúl the Third’s about a young boy facing his parent’s divorce through finding his own inner superhero.
Dance
Performers of the Mark Morris Dance Group in The Look of Love: An Evening of Dance to the Music of Burt Bacharach (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)
Terpsichore takes over the stage for two of America’s most important dance troupes with familiar works reconfigured. First, the Mark Morris Dance Group leaps into the songbook of one of the great composers with The Look of Love: An Evening of Dance to the Music of Burt Bacharach (Jan. 17, 2026), all set to new arrangements by jazz pianist Ethan Iverson performed live with vocals by Broadway star Marcy Harriell (In the Heights, Rent). Finally, familiar friends of the TPA, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (March 3, 2026), bring four of the Texas-born choreographer’s greatest works to Austin, including his signature work, Revelations.
Tickets for are available now for TPA Iron Circle members, and go on sale to the general public at 10am on Friday, June 13, at texasperformingarts.org.